Experimental Films of the 1960’s from Nihon University

Selected by film scholar Go Hirasawa, International House Philadelphia and CCJ presents an evening of experimental films by three filmmakers associated with Nihon University in the 1960s. The first two works represent producers Motoharu Jonouchi and Masao Adachi's activities within the Nihon University Cinema Club (Nihon Daigaku Eiga Kenkyukai, a.k.a. Nichidai Eiken), a collective formed in the late 1950s and associated with the university’s communist organization. Produced by Jonouchi, Pou Pou (1960) was made in the period leading up to, and in the context of the protests against the renewal of the Japan–U.S. Security Treaty in 1960, which allowed the continuation of American military bases in the country. After failures to prevent the security treaty renewal, Adachi produced Wan (Bowl) (1961), expressing the political landscape from his leftist point of view. Though not a member of the Cinema Club, Tomita produced The Martyr as a film-production student at Nihon University.